A village in southern Hebei buried in silt during a Yellow River dike break (photo taken on March 1, 1935). The flood inundated approximately 6000 sq miles of farming country in western Shandong and northern Jiangsu.
Damaged dike section was repaired by reducing the width of the break with layers of kaoliang stalks and earth until it was no wider than 80 ft, which would then be plugged with a large core also built with kaoliang stalks and earth. The foreground is the river side, while the background is the flooded region. The "sausages" are used for closing the break.
Bottom picture shows the large core used for final plugging of the breach.
Picture source: O.J. Todd and S. Eliassen, "The Yellow River Problem," Transactions American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. 105 (1940), p. 346. (Article published in December, 1938, Proceedings)
Todd and Eliassen were American consulting civil engineers connected with Chinese organizations, such as the Yellow River Commission, the Chihli or North China River Commission, and the China International Famine Relief Commission since 1919.